Woyzeck is Back!: A Comparative Reading of Traumatised Soldiers in Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck and Anthony Neilson’s Penetrator

Abstract

Following its official recognition by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has paved the way for modern trauma studies. Since the diagnosis was primarily framed around war-related experiences of veteran soldiers, PTSD subsequently dominated literary war narratives in portraying soldiers’ lives in the trenches and life post-discharge. Long before it was diagnosed and entered the literature, German playwright Georg Büchner delineated a character who embodied PTSD in his masterpiece Woyzeck (1913). Although the character had long been impeached for madness in literary circles due to his bizarre behaviours, this paper argues that Woyzeck, the protagonist who is constantly abused, is actually a victim of PTSD. Indeed, 157 years after Woyzeck, British playwright Anthony Neilson introduced another deranged soldier who can similarly be surmised as a victim of PTSD in his play Penetrator (1993). Building on this common ground, the present study aims to offer a comparative analysis of these two traumatised soldiers by drawing on the symptoms of PTSD resulting not fromwar but from ill-treatment in the army. By reflecting on these plays, the study comments on the deleterious effects of army life on soldiers, and how, as victims of different forms of violence, these soldiers become perpetrators of violence themselves.

Keywords

• PTSD
• Woyzeck
• Penetrator
• trauma
• soldier

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